A cutting-and-inventory control problem in the manufacturing industry of stainless steel wares

Circular pieces are often cut from stainless steel roll to make common commodities such as pots and cups. The related factories are often make-to-order ones. The stock rolls usually have the same width. Each working order requires pieces of the same size. Pieces of different sizes cannot appear in the same cutting pattern because the orders do not arrive simultaneously. The approach proposed in this paper assumes that the original roll can be slit into a strip and a partial roll. The strip is used to fulfill the current order. The partial roll will be used to fulfill future orders and cannot be slit further. The approach determines several standard widths for the partial rolls and uses a greedy procedure to select the roll (either the original roll or a partial roll) to fulfill the current order. The computational results indicate that the approach is efficient in improving material utilization.